I’m not one of those people who make New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe I was, once (I honestly don’t remember), but I’ve certainly come to realize that making proclamations of things I’ll accomplish usually don’t last until February. I tried the “word of the year” a couple of times – you know, where you find that one particular word that you want to manifest for yourself in the coming year. Which pretty much meant that for 2 or 3 years in a row I kept forgetting I had chosen a “word of the year” and then choosing the same word for the next year…
This year, though, perhaps because I’m an eternal optimist – I’ve been thinking about trying to develop some new habits. Is this any different than a “resolution”? In my mind, it is. I think of resolutions as things like “this year I’m going to lose weight, be better with money, and learn a new language” (none of those things I’m actually going to do, of course). But developing a new habit means “writing blog posts on a regular basis,” or “read more, watch fewer YouTube cooking videos”.
I definitely need to read more, because my to be read pile (it’s a virtual pile, since I read on a Kindle) is much longer than the books I’ve read in the past 6 months. And I do watch an inordinate amount of cooking videos on YouTube (but I just learned a new method for making pie crust and my word! I am now making the best pie crust EVER and therefore I have justified my time watching YouTube to be worth it).
I am going to write more blog posts this year. I enjoy writing them (when I have inspiration for topics, at least), and the library deserves to have them. As usual I am blown away by the creativity and hard work of our amazing staff and Board. We have so many fun ideas for this year! One of the ones I’m particularly looking forward to is “Pie for Breakfast”. And yes, there will be breakfast pie served, but this is also going to be a perfect opportunity to not only reveal to the “world” (i.e. library friends, patrons and the community) the best pie crust I’ve ever made – but a chance to have chocolate cream pie for breakfast!!
Will I develop any other new habits? Maybe I’ll start small and just stick with one. I don’t know if I can give up my cooking video addiction.
While I was writing this blog post, I was trying to remember the quote that centers around “once you’ve done something consistently enough, it becomes a habit” and somehow stumbled on this gem: “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.” Now that’s a habit I can get behind.
May 2022 be gentle and kind to us all.